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Homeland Security Tracks Information of Travelers
feuerfalke writes "Homeland Security recently disclosed a plan regarding an Automated Targeting System, or ATS, that would generate a 'terrorist risk rating' based on information collected about the traveler. This information would include things such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and the meals they ordered in-flight. These ratings have now been assigned to millions of international travelers, including Americans, and the ATS is exempt from many provisions of the Privacy Act — one cannot view their rating or the information used to generate it."
...the makers of this system need to work on Netflix's reccomendation system.
Terrorists looooove chicken with a side of fresh veggies. Good work, TSA.
I spent a good part of my childhood just a few miles away from the lucky side of the Iron Curtain. One of the things that our teachers told us was so bad about East Germany was the fact that they "kept files on their citizens! Normal people, like you and me!"
So what do we tell the kids, today?
So if you're flagged you're screwed? If "the ATS is exempt from many provisions of the Privacy Act -- one cannot view their rating or the information used to generate it", and if you get erroneously flagged, you're screwed???
This is like the no-fly list only worse then, isn't it? An algorithm kicks out the belief that you must be a terrorist, and anytime you go anywhere it's gonna beep and you get cold hands and lube once again.
I hope this gets shot down by a court, because way too many scary things are being passed that exempt themselves from any sort of oversight and transparency. I can envision a lot of people deciding they don't really wish to fly to the US anymore. It's impossible to do without having your privacy invaded or running the risk of ending up on some secret CIA flight or something.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There has not been an al-queda attack on american soil since 9/11, this is absolute proof that these new policies of privacy invasion and loss of freedom are working to keep you safe.
Obviously the best way to fly is to have lots of booze and pork....well...not necessarily related to being labeled a terrorist, really booze is the only thing that makes flying bearable.
Monstar L
Out of all the criteria used, meals ordered stood out to me. It seems so out of place, but I imagine that it is a bit of blatant racial profiling. I am guessing that anyone who orders a meal that conforms to an Islamic diet gets a higher rating on this system. I don't think the beef or chicken will make a difference. Perhaps "racial" profiling is not the best term, since this will hunt out people based on Religion, which would be a much greater privacy concern in my mind.
*You took a one-way trip to assist in disaster aid in New Orleans or Thailand in the last two years, not knowing when you would be comfortable with/forced to leave the area.
*You enjoy food from the Middle East (they probably have a Middle-Eastern mid-flight meal SOMEWHERE) after trying some at a small suburban restaraunt near your Pakistani coworker.
*You paid in cash, since you recently went bankrupt and are moving somewhere that has a lower cost of living.
*You refused to show your ID in the airport a few months ago because you packed your wallet in your checked bag by accident (Happened to me, it's tons of fun).
*You checked out a book on Islamic extremism for your Current Issues class, for a Debate on the issue, or other such academia.
It's good to know our previous Congress was too busy pissing themselves post-911 to have a clear enough mind to see how freaking WRONG the Patriot Act was, and then kept being embarassed by the stain enough to extend it's duration.
It's not a national security program:
>Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any terrorists.
It can't work because of the base rate fallacy. At any false alarm rate known to man, the output will be statistically indistiguishable from 100% false alarms.
All these problems are aggravated by the fact that they won't correct errors:
>Nor can they see the records "for the purpose of contesting the content."
It's not to keep airplanes safe, it's a general control tool:
>ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits.
Obviously, this method is a bit more sophisticated than yours as it uses a FEW more variables. I'm not following your logic, which seems to be that if creating a profile based on one factor is stupid then creating one based on many factors is no better.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I just can't think of a anything good that will come of this.
Sorry Yanks, the USA is dead, you have one party with two faces to make you think you have a choice. Welcome to Soviet America.
(goodbye karma)
Naw. Sex and chewing gum are better. The sex to kill the time and the chewing gum to prevent ear popping.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Dave's instant translation from government-speak to English:
how they paid for tickets
their motor vehicle records
past one-way travel
seating preference
The meals they ordered in-flight
These ratings have now been assigned to millions of international travelers, including Americans, and the ATS is exempt from many provisions of the Privacy Act -- one cannot view their rating or the information used to generate it."
This concludes this translation session.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Do you think you're exaggerating?
Muslims removed from airplane when passengers found praying to be suspicious
I'm not saying this out of paranoia - I'm saying this from personal experiences. I took a trip about a year ago to attend my brother's wedding. As luck would have it, my birthday had passed while I was at my travel destination, and with all the wedding and family stuff going on, I failed to realize that my drivers license had expired while I was at my travel destination. When I went to go on my return flight, I was flagged for "special" scanning/treatment, and I've been "randomly selected" to be frisked every time I travel after that as well. They can look through my bags all they want, but I must admit I seriously dislike (though I tolerate it to avoid conflict with the TSA) being frisked like that by some stranger every time I travel.
I'm certain some good jokes will follow this, but at least learn from my mistake: make sure your drivers license (even though is technically valid 30 days after expiration) does not expire in the midst of your travels!
In the US? By number of attacks, white Christians males are responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks. White Christian females come in number 2. Everyone else is a distant 3rd. In yearly deathrate its the same two, but with a blip in 2001.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You mean like this?
Wasn't this talked about at LEAST 2 years ago?
Hell, about four years ago, I was flagged for a super-duper security check at the Denver airport because I was flying on a last-minute one-way flight (bought with a debit card!) as I rushed in to put out a fire at a hosting operation. So there's me, looking more than a little bedraggled, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a laptop bag stuffed with some mysterious-looking replacement parts. The very nice, but very thorough inspectors told me that I should completely expect every flight I take for the following several years to end up going exactly the same way, because the profiling has some real inertia to it. They were correct, as I've gotten the (polite/thorough) treatment every time since, even when traveling on more conventionally purchased tickets. Maybe it's my warm, fuzzy personality.
Not really. It's behavioral profiling - a lot more effective than skin-based profiling. Something that doesn't seem to get the coverage it's supposed to in recent flaps like the imam-fest the other day. (hint: loudly uttering "allah" and dispersing your group of six guys in pairs to the wrong parts of the airplane rather invites a look at your behavior). I may have the imam hair, and perhaps my shoes COULD explode after standing in them for 48 hours straight in front of a rack of servers, but I don't tend to send a lot of those other signals. On the other hand, I've met some very nice TSA people - they keep the best ones on the sidelines for the personal inspections, it seems.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
First there's the games theory problem. Stop everyone from Saudi Arabia from boarding airplanes, and the killers will put locally recruited types like John Walker Lindh onto airplanes.
Second, nobody has a monopoly on killing innocent people. From Salon's Patrick Smith, via Bruce Schneier's blog:
* In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was blown up over the Atlantic by:
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Bill O'Reilly
c. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
d. Indian Sikh extremists, in retaliation for the Indian Army's attack on the Golden Temple shrine in Amritsar
* In 1986, who attempted to smuggle three pounds of explosives onto an El Al jetliner bound from London to Tel Aviv?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Michael Smerconish
c. Bob Mould
d. A pregnant Irishwoman named Anne Murphy
* In 1962, in the first-ever successful sabotage of a commercial jet, a Continental Airlines 707 was blown up with dynamite over Missouri by:
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Ann Coulter
c. Henry Rollins
d. Thomas Doty, a 34-year-old American passenger, as part of an insurance scam
* In 1994, who nearly succeeding in skyjacking a DC-10 and crashing it into the Federal Express Corp. headquarters?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Michelle Malkin
c. Charlie Rose
d. Auburn Calloway, an off-duty FedEx employee and resident of Memphis, Tenn.
* In 1974, who stormed a Delta Air Lines DC-9 at Baltimore-Washington Airport, intending to crash it into the White House, and shot both pilots?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Joe Scarborough
c. Spalding Gray
d. Samuel Byck, an unemployed tire salesman from Philadelphia
>loudly uttering "allah"
A religious obligation for over a billion people five times a day.
The other noteworthy point is that *after* they were dogsniffed, searched and cleared, US Airways refused to sell them replacement tickets. US Airways pointed them to other airlines, which proves it wasn't a safety issue.
Every time a story comes up on this topic I see a few people saying we ought to start profiling Muslims, and the only reason we aren't doing it is political correctness. There's a huge flaw in that theory: The obvious and easily profiled Muslims are the openly pious ones who are most likely to be peaceful and least likely to carry out any terrorist attack.
The real extremists, the ones who are willing to commit terrorism, are more likely to believe their religion allows them to pretend to be something else in order to defeat their enemies. They may not want to wear Western clothing, shave their beards, dye their skin pale white, take on Anglo-American names, forego their daily prayers, or eat pork rib platters for dinner, but extremists will do all of those things and more if it gives them a chance to strike at their perceived enemies. This is why ethnic profiling would be ineffective at best, and any feelings of safety it might create would be utterly false.
The refusal to openly endorse profiling of Muslims and Middle Eastern people in general is one of the things our government is actually doing right. Most of the people in these categories are not enemies of civilization. It would be a huge strategic mistake to treat all of them as if they were.
Just for the record.
... no problem ... happens .. no problem ... no problem ... makes people nervous
They came aboard - ok
They made a lot of noise - ok
They ordered - unecessary seatbelt extensions - which are heavy metal objects - ok
They stood up and started praying - ok
They sat back down ONE AT EACH EXIT OF THE PLANE - BIG problem
These people were trying to do one of 2 things
-> terrorist attack
-> get themselves removed from the plane so they could call "racist"
You're not going to tell me these people didn't have this coming.
1927 the deadliest mass murder in US school history was perpetrated by?
A. Tom Cruise?
B. Beetle Bailey?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?
In 1955 United Airlines Flight 629 was blown up by?
A. Oprah Winfrey?
B. The Riddler?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?
In 1996 the record-breaking Port Arthur Massacre was commited by?
A. Carlos Mencia?
B. Dragons?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?
The Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City was blown up by?
A. Dale Earnhardt?
B. Ghandi?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?
The deadliest attack on children in UK history, the Dunblane Massacre, was committed by?
A. Roy Rogers?
B. KISS?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?
On 9/11, Muslim male extremists successfully hijacked four planes, and successfully crashed three of them into their intended targets. Your five examples of non-Muslim events have only two planes going down, one of them 21 years ago, the other one 44 years ago. And only the one 44 years ago was in the US.
So, is your point that Muslims make more successful terrorists, or what? Or that terrorism by Muslims is a more recent trend? Not sure what point you're trying to make by asking for more 'recent' examples. Just because it happened outside of your attention span doesn't make it any less pertinent.
So, can we PLEASE drop the racial/religious profiling, and just focus on the individuals involved, instead of blindly regurgitating hateful propoganda? Thanks.
I'd rather be an ignorant moron than an anonymous coward.
If somebody prayed to Jesus before getting on a plane because they are afraid of flying, should they be removed as a provocative terrorist?
No.
Now: you and five other people do that, and do it very loudly as a group in the terminal. And, of course, you do this in the context of several years of recent history during which your bretheren have a well-documented history of doing the same thing right before an attack in a public space. But never mind that... then, you and your five friends get on a plane, and ask for odd things: like, those of you that are not large, fat people ask for seatbelt extensions, which you then put on the floor by your feet. Then, despite having your request declined, you get up from your seats, and pair up: two walk up to the first class section and site together, two go to the rear of the plane, and two take the middle near the exits.
Gee, do you think that's maybe a little different than some Jesus-type having a little I'm-a-nervous-flier prayer? Pray all you want: but the actions of those six guys (ALL of their actions) have to be taken as a whole. They were deliberately provoking their audience with this stunt, exactly to get the camera time they got, so that they could talk about how people don't treat them nicely. Gee.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Living here is kinda like being "The Prisoner". They have lots of colourful marching bands. Saw some kids practicing with mock rifles last summer, as most kids back home would practice with batons. People are being watched because the US government thinks that if they know enough about you there is some causation with future action....Even I've been fingerprinted four or five times but have never been involved in anything more than a speeding ticket. Today my US friend just bought an AK47 for $500.
This place is freak'n surreal.
I haven't commented on Slashdot for a while, but your post is full of enough short-sightedness for me to have to do so here.
1. The grandparent posters examples might have stretched back a while, but you're focusing on the wrong thing. His examples illustrate that terrorism and ends-justify-the-means violence is nothing new, and that people of more than one faith are capable of doing it.
Furthermore, in a historical context, they illustrate that the current paranoia displayed to the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims because of a the actions of a tiny fraction of people of that faith is an inappropriate overreaction. The actions of a few don't dictate the beliefs and intentions of the many, so don't fall into the trap of making that mistake.
2. You quote a website that clearly has an agenda, and that agenda is colouring Islam as a religion that is based on hate and which is driven by the need to murder others. Even if their stats are 100 percent accurate, do you have similar figures for other religions? Can you honestly claim that, say, Christians, Jews, Bhuddists or people of any other faith are less destructive and can you back it up with any data?
Yes, some misguided Muslims have killed others in the name of their religion, but so have others of other faiths. Yes, some extracts of the Koran can be interpreted violently, but so can some extracts of the Bible, the Torah, etc. If you're going to sweepingly condemn people for the actions of their brethren, or for the words written in their holy texts, then I think you're going to condemn almost everybody on the planet.
Certainly, it makes me glad to be agnostic when I see people colouring things the way that you do here. I don't know if there is a God, so I don't have a side, and I certainly don't have an agenda. As someone who's walked past IRA bombs minutes before they've exploded and whose girlfriend was on a London Underground train while some were being blown up last year I'm in no doubt that you don't have to be of a certain religion, creed, colour or cause to want to kill someone.
There is one thing that I don't doubt though: it's that people who only see one worldview and who demonise those that have differing worldviews are part of the problem, not part of the solution. And in case it passes over your head, that applies to you just as much as it applies to the Al Qaedas and IRAs of this world.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Who are you to speak about "logical contortions" when you state that the two examples of successfully crashed jets have a "combined" age of 65 years ago. Um, and the four jets taken down in 9/11 were a "combined" 20 years ago. That's the most ridiculous twisting of math I've heard since someone showed me a "proof" of how 1 == 2.
It would have been more convincing if you'd given the average age, but this is laughable, especially when you mention "logical contortions".
You don't have what it takes to be a good troll.
Muslims removed from airplane when passengers found praying to be suspicious
The Star Tribune article that you link to is appallingly bad. Practically speaking it is closer to disinformation about the incident and why the Imams were removed from the plane.
How the imams terrorized an airliner
Marshals decry imams' charges
THE FAKING IMAMS
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell